when tempted to evil; and a sad change in his deportment became evident. He had not firmness enough to reprove his companion for what he knew to be wicked, or steadfastly to resist what his conscience disapproved.

It was not long ere he began to waste his time, and neglect the appointed lessons. Fortified by bad example, he scorned the censure that followed, and learned to ridicule, in secret, the instructors whom he should have loved. Foolish and hurtful books engrossed and corrupted the minds of those thoughtless comrades, and there they were making themselves merry with what they should have shunned, while their distant relatives supposed them diligent in the acquisition of knowledge.

Months passed on, and the vacation approached. Every day was counted by the anxious mother. His room was put in perfect order, and some articles of furniture added, which it was thought would please him. His little library was arranged to make the best appearance, and his minerals newly labelled, and placed in their respective compartments. Some of his toys she removed to her own cabinet, for she said, "They will be too childish for him now; but I love to keep them, for they remind me of him, when he just began to walk and to speak, and was always so happy." His favourite articles of food were not forgotten, and as the time of his arrival drew near, she busied herself in their preparation, with that delight in which only the fond maternal heart can partake.

When the loved one came, his uncle exclaimed, with exultation, "How improved!-how manly!" He had, indeed, gained much in stature, and promised to possess a graceful, well-proportioned form. But those who scrutinized his countenance and manner, might be led to doubt whether every change had been for the better, or whether the added manliness might not have been purchased at too great a cost. Simple gratifications no longer contented him. He seemed to require for himself a lavish expenditure. He ceased to ask pleasantly for the things that he desired, or to express gratitude for them! but said, churlishly, through his shut teeth, with half-averted face, "I want this, or that. Other boys have all they wish. I see no reason why I should not."

His mother was still more alarmed at the habits of reserve and concealment

which he had contracted. Formerly, he was accustomed to impart freely to her all that concerned him. Now, she could not but feel that she was shut out from his confidence, and fear that her influence over him was irrecoverably lost.

Still she remitted no effort or device, in which the maternal heart is so fruitful, to reinstate herself in his affections. Sometimes she was flattered by a brightening hope; then he started aside, like a deceitful bow. His first vacation was, in these respects, a model of those that followed; and the two last years at school passed away, with little intellectual gain, and great moral loss.

At his entrance into college, he was exposed to greater temptations, and still less inclined to repel them. Let no parent flatter himself, that it will be well with a son thus situated, unless he possesses firm principles, and is willing diligently to labour in the acquisition of knowledge. Good talents, and good temper alone, will not save him. The first, without industry, are unfruitful; and the sunshine of the latter may be clouded by immediate self-reproach.

consum

We will not follow Frank Edwards through the haunts of folly and intemperance where his ruin was mated. His letters to his affectionate parents were few and brief. Those to his uncle were more frequent, because on him the supply of his purse depended. That gentleman was heard to say, with a smile of somewhat indefinite character, that "truly, he spent money like a man.” It was supposed, however, that in the course of a year or two he might have become dissatisfied with the manly expenses of his nephew, as he ceased to boast of this proof of his virility.

Though Frank was ignobly contented with the lowest grade in scholarship, he had still a latent ambition to be distinguished in some way or other. So he was fond of speaking of his "rich, oldbachelor uncle," and saying that, without doubt, he should be his heir. His mad expenditure was praised as liberality; and he called a fine, noble-hearted fellow, by the gay companions who walked with him in the way to destruction.

Early in the third year of his collegiate course, he came home in ill health. He found fault with the laws of the institution, and ridiculed its officers. He said it was impossible to gain a good education there, if one applied himself ever so

closely to his studies. In short, he blamed every person but himself. He had left college in disgrace and debt, with neither the disposition nor ability to return. His uncle, who had certainly great reason to be offended, told him that he need have no further expectations from him; for unless the whole course of his life was changed, he should choose some more worthy recipient of his bounty, and find some heir to his estate, who would not dishonour his name.

The sad and mortified father took the youth to his own counting-house. He enforced on him the necessity of doing something for his support. But he had no habits of application, and despised the routine of business, and the confinement that it imposed. His red and bloated face revealed, but too truly, the vice to which he was enslaved. As he passed in the street, he was pointed out as the ruined young man.

Alas! for the poor mother. Long did she labour to hide the fearful truth from her own heart. Her love, ingenious in its excuses, strove to palliate his conduct in the view of others, hoping that he might yet retrieve his reputation. Patiently, and with woman's tact, she waited for glimpses of good feeling-for moments of reflection, to give force to her tender appeals, her earnest remonstrances. But her husband said to her, "It is in vain that we would blind our selves to what is known to all the people. Our son is a sot! I have tried with and for him every means of reformation; but they are all like water spilt upon the ground, which no man gathereth up again."

That disgusting vice, which breaks down grace of form and beauty of countenance, and debases intellect to a level with the brute creation, has seldom been more painfully displayed than in the case of this miserable youth. The pleasant chamber, so carefully decorated by maternal taste the very pictures on whose walls seemed to look reproachfully at him where his happy boyhood had dreamed away nights of innocence, and woke to the exuberance of health and joy, was now the scene of his frequent sickness, senseless laughter, or awful impre

cations.

But his career was short, and his sudden death horrible. Those who most loved him were unable to witness it. With eyeballs starting from their sockets, he raved of hideous monsters and

One

fiery shapes that surrounded him. furious struggle, one unearthly shriek of wild and weak contention, and in the agonies of delirium tremens died this miserable victim of intemperance, ere time had impaired his vigour, or ripened the blossom of his manly prime.

In the suburbs of the city where Frank Edwards was born and died, was a cluster of humble dwellings, in one of which resided a widow, with her only son. She was poor, and inured to labour; but freely expended on him the little gains of her industry, as well as the overflowing fulness of her affections. She denied herself every superfluity, that he might enjoy the advantages of education, and the indulgences that boyhood covets. Silently she sat, working at her small fire, by a single lamp, often regarding with intense delight her boy, as he amused himself with his books, or sought out his lessons for the following day. The expenses of his education were defrayed by her unresting toil, and glad and proud was she to bestow on him privileges which she had never been so happy as to share. She believed him to be faithfully acquiring that knowledge which she respected, without being able fully to comprehend. But his teachers and his idle playmates better knew how he was employed. He learned to astonish his simple, admiring parent with high-sounding epithets, and technical terms, and to despise her for not understanding them. When she saw him sometimes dejected, at comparing his situation with those who were above him in rank, she deepened her own selfdenial, that she might add a luxury to his table, or a garment to his wardrobe.

How happy was her affectionate heart in such sacrifices! Yet she erred in judgment, for they fell like good seed upon stony ground. Indulgence ministered to his selfishness, and rendered him incapable of warm gratitude, or just appreciation. As his boyhood advanced, there was little reciprocity of kindness, and every year seemed to diminish even that little. At length, his manners assumed a cast of defiance. She was grieved at the alteration, but solaced herself with the sentiment, that it was "just the nature of boys."

He grew boisterous and disobedient. His returns to their humble cottage became irregular. She sat up late for him, and when she heard his approaching footsteps, forgot her weariness, and

welcomed him kindly. But he might have seen reproach written on the paleness of her loving brow, if he would have read its language. During these long and lonely evenings, she sometimes wept as she remembered him in his early years, when he was so gentle, and to her eye, so beautiful. "But this is the nature of young men," said her lame philosophy. So she armed herself to bear.

At length, it was evident that darker vices were making him their victim. The habit of intemperance could no longer be concealed, even from a love that blinded itself. The widowed mother remonstrated with unwonted energy. She was answered in the dialect of insolence and brutality.

He disappeared from her cottage. What she dreaded had come upon her. In his anger, he had gone to sea. And now every night when the tempest howled, and the wind was high, she lay sleepless, thinking of him. She saw him in her imagination, climbing the slippery shrouds, or doing the bidding of rough, unfeeling men. Again, she fancied that he was sick and suffering, with none to watch over him, and have patience with his waywardness; and her head, which silver hairs had begun to sprinkle, throbbed in agony, till her eyes gushed out like fountains of waters.

But hopes of his return began to cheer her. When the new moon, with its slender crescent, looked in at her window, she said in her lonely heart, "My boy will be here before that moon is old." And when it waned, and went away, she sighed, "My boy will remember me."

Years fled, and there was no letterno message. Sometimes she gathered floating tidings that he was on some far sea, or in some foreign clime. When he touched at any port of his native land, it was not to seek the cottage of his mo.ther, but to waste his wages in revelry, and re-embark on a new voyage.

Weary years, and no recognition, no letter; and yet she had abridged her comforts, that he might be taught to write, and was wont to exhibit his penmanship with such pride. Alas! her indulgence had been lost on an ignoble nature; but she checked the reproachful thought, and sighed, "It was the way with sailors."

Amid all these years of neglect and cruelty, still Love lived on. When Hope

withheld nutriment, it begged food of Memory. It was satisfied with the crumbs from a table that must never be spread more. So Memory brought the fragments that she had gathered into her basket, when infancy and childish innocence held their simple festivals, and Love, as a mendicant, received that broken bread, and fed upon it, and gave thanks. It fed upon the cradle-smile, upon the first lisping words, when with its cheek laid upon the mother's, the babe slumbered the livelong night, or when essaying the first uncertain footsteps, he tottered with outstretched arms to her bosom, as a bird, newly-fledged, to its

nest.

was

But Religion found this forsaken widow, and communed with her at the deep midnight, while the storm raging without. It told her of a "Name better than of sons or of daughters," and she was comforted. It bade her resign herself to the will of her Father in heaven, and she found peace.

It was a cold evening in the winter, and the snow lay deep upon the earth. The widow sat alone, by her little fireside. The marks of early age had settled upon her. There was meekness on her brow, and in her hand a book from whence that meekness came.

A heavy knock shook her door, and ere she could open it, a man entered. He moved with pain, like one crippled, and his red and downcast visage was partially concealed by a torn hat. Among those who had been familiar with his youthful countenance, only one, save the Being who made him, could have recognised him through his disguise and misery. The mother, looking deep into his eye, saw a faint tinge of that fair blue which had charmed her when it unclosed from the cradle-dream.

"My son! my son!"

Had the prodigal returned, by a late repentance, to atone for years of ingratitude and sin? I will not speak of the revels that shook the lowly roof of his widowed parent, or the profanity that disturbed her repose.

The remainder of his history is brief. The effects of vice had debilitated his constitution, and once, as he was apparently recovering from a long paroxysm of intemperance, apoplexy struck his heated brain, and he lay—a bloated and hideous corse!

The poor mother faded away, and followed him!—Mrs. Sigourney.

THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

TILL the middle of the eighteenth century the project of establishing a national museum had never been entertained in England. It was suggested by the will of sir Hans Sloane, who, during a long period of eminent practice in physic, had accumulated, in addition to a numerous library of books and мss., a large collection of objects of natural history and works of art; these he directed should be offered, after his death, which took place in 1753, to the British parliament, for the sum of 20,000l., the collection having cost him 50,000l. The offer was accepted, and, before the end of the year, an act passed, which ordered the payment of the required sum, and vested the property of the museum in trustees for the use of the public. Competent judges had long been solicitous that sir Hans Sloane's museum should be preserved entire, and he was himself consulted, before his death, as to several of the persons who were afterwards named trustees.

But the attention of the legislature was not confined to the museum of sir Hans Sloane. The act of parliament of the 26th George II., which directed the purchase of his museum, also directed the purchase of the Harleian collection of MSS., and enacted that the Cottonian library of мss., which had been given to the government for public uses, by an act SEPTEMBER, 1849.

of the 12th and 13th of William III., should, with the library of major Arthur Edwards attached to it, form a part of the general collection.

These several collections were ordered to be kept in their then respective places of deposit, till a more convenient repository, more durable and more safe from fire, and nearer to the chief places of public resort, could be provided for the reception of the whole.

To defray the expenses of these purchases, to procure a fit repository for their preservation, and to provide a fund for the permanent support of the establishment when formed, the act directed that 100,000l. should be raised, by way of lottery, the nett produce of which, together with the several collections, was to be vested in an incorporated body of persons, selected from the first characters in the kingdom for rank, station, and literary attainments, upon whom it conferred ample powers for the disposal, preservation, and management of the institution, which it was determined should bear the name of the "British Museum."

The only buildings offered as general repositories at this time were Buckingham House, with the gardens and field, for 30,000l.; and Montague House, for 10,000l. The consideration of the former was waved, partly from the greatness of the sum demanded for it, and partly from the inconvenience of the situation. 2 c

The

latter was finally fixed upon, and the agreement for it made in the spring of 1754. No offer of ground for building a repository was made, except in Old Palace-yard, where it was at one time proposed that the museum should find a place, in the general plan which had been then recently designed by Kent for new Houses of Parliament.

Montague House was first built about 1674, by Ralph Montague, esq., afterwards baron Montague of Boughton, and duke of Montague, in the manner of a French palace. It was erected from the design of Robert Hooke, the celebrated mathematician, so much employed in the rebuilding of London after the great fire. Foreign artists were chiefly engaged in its completion, by the duke of Montague's desire, and amongst them signor Verrio, for the decorations. When finished, it was considered the most magnificent and complete building, for a private residence, then known in London. But on the 19th of January, 1686, owing to the negligence of a servant, the house was burned to the ground. The large income of lord Montague was again placed in requisition for the reconstruction of his palace; and though executed by fresh artists, the plan was the same, the new structure being raised upon the foundations and burnt walls of the old

one.

The second architect employed was Peter Puget, a native of Marseilles, who was assisted in the decorations by Charles de la Fosse, Jaques Rousseau, and John Baptiste Monoyer, three artists of great eminence. La Fosse painted the ceilings, Rousseau the landscapes and architecture, and Monoyer the flowers. Rousseau also assisted as clerk of the works to the building.*

This second building was purchased for the general repository. The Harleian collection of MSS. was removed to it in 1755; followed, in 1756, by the other collections; and the whole having been properly distributed and arranged, the museum was opened for study and inspection January 15th, 1759.

At this time, the contents of the museum were divided into three departments, namely, printed books, manuscripts, and natural history.

*The exclusive employment of French artists in the new house gave rise to the popular but improbable tale, that Montague House was rebuilt at the expense of Louis XIV., to whose court lord Montague had twice been sent as ambassador.

The department of printed books consisted, at first, of the libraries of sir Hans Sloane and major Edwards only. In 1757, king George II., by instrument under the great seal, added the library, which had been collected by the kings of England, as far as printed books were concerned, from the time of king Henry VII. rich in the prevailing literature of different periods, and including, among others, the libraries of archbishop Cranmer, of Henry prince of Wales, and of Isaac Casaubon. His majesty annexed to his gift the privilege which the royal library had acquired in the reign of Anne, of being supplied with a copy of every publication entered at Stationers' Hall.

This department was further enriched, in 1763, by a donation from king George III., of a collection of pamphlets and periodical papers published in England, between 1640 and 1660, chiefly illustrative of the civil wars of the time of Charles I., and collected by order of that monarch. It is impossible to enumerate in detail all the additions which have been since made by gift or purchase.

The engraving at the head of this article, for the details of which we are indebted to the "Penny Cyclopædia," exhibits the noble structure lately reared on the site of Montague House. What a contrast does it present to the former edifice! Not less great, however, is that of its treasure to the original and valuable collection of sir Hans Sloane.

CARLOS; OR, SCENES ON THE SANDS.

THE more attentively we regard the scenes which are around us, the greater is the wonder that is awakened in our minds. The vast and the minute alike challenge our admiration. How small is a blade of grass, and yet blades of grass spread a green carpet over the ground. How diminutive is a grain of corn, and yet grains of corn supply millions with food. The morsels of hoar frost, and the flakes of snow spangle the forest trees, and clothe creation as with a woollen garment. The ways of the Eternal are not as our ways; with hosts of angels at his command, he often effects his purposes with the weakest instruments. With the coral insect he can build up mountains in the sea; with the